659 

1885 


Leeds 
Concerning  Printed  Poison   , 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


CONCERNING 

Peixted  Poison. 


HY 

TOSIAH    W.    LEEDS, 


EIGHTH     THOUSAND. 


piiii..\i»i;i.rfii.\: 

No.    828     \A/AUNUT    STREET. 

PlUfl.ISHI'I)    IciR    THi;    AtTHOK. 

•  S85. 


Concerning  Pkinted  Poison, 

Page  5 

Oh  LocAi-  Happening, 

•'    23 

The  Pernicious  in  Libraries, 

"     ?/) 

Concluding  Remark, 

"     41 

MEMOEANDUM 


A  considerable  part  of  the  little  Essay  which  follows,  appeared 
the  first  day  of  the  present  year  in  the  Public  Ledger,  of  this 
city.  The  subject  of  which  it  treats  has  become  a  somewhat 
prominent  one  at  this  time,  and,  in  the  belief  that  the  views 
iierein  presented  may  be  both  suggestive  and  helpful  to  not  a 
few  in  other  communities,  this  pamphlet  edition  of  the  expanded 
article  (with  some  other  matter  appended),  has  now  been  printed. 
It  is  commended  to  the  serious  consideration  of  the  editors,  pub- 
lishers, librarians,  and  others  into  whose  hands  it  may  come. 

In  undertaking  to  lay  the  responsibility  for  the  prevalence  and 
continuous  increase  of  the  "printed  poison"  evil  where  it  rightly 
l)elongs,  a  care  has  been  exercised  not  to  so  far  rest  the  blame  on 
the  shoulders  of  the  purveyors  of  demoralizing  prints  and  of 
jiernicious  literature  generally,  as  to  excuse  the  indifference  or 
negligence  of  very  many  parents  respecting  the  character  of  the 
reading  matter  which  falls  into  the  hands  of  their  oflf'spring. 
Neither,  whilst  referring  to  the  laxity  frequently  shown  by  officers 
of  tlic  law  concerning  pictured  indecency,  has  the  writer  condoned 
the  supineness  of  so  many  professing  Christians  in  never  letting 
it  appi'ar  in  tlieir  daily  walk  that  they  have  any  convictions  upon 
the  subject  that  are  wortli  the  troiil)lc  of  upholding.  Respecting 
how  best  to  deal  with,  and  how  far  to  tolerate,  the  licjuor-drinking 
habit,  there  may  be  much  iionest  difference  of  opinion,  but,  that 
l>ablic  decency  is  a  valuable  possession  to  be  maintained  with  all 


c^5^\ 


IV  MEMORANDUM. 

vigilaiu'c,  ought  surely  to  bo  uliiriiicd  l)_v  I'vrrv  one  of  ordinary 
moral  (li.seornnient — whatever  his  col(jr,  nationality  or  politics,  his 
ethical  views  or  religious  belief. 

It  scarcely  need  be  added,  however,  that  it  will  be  of  little  avail 
to  posses.s  a  right  apjirehension  of  the  truth  in  this  nuitt(;r,  if  we 
never,  as  occasions  arise,  express  and  maintain  it,  or,  if  we  are 
fearful  as  to  what  our  outspoken  testimony  is  likely  to  cost  us. 
The  j)resident  of  a  certain  corporation,  upon  being  reijucsted  to 
prohibit  the  sale  of  a  paper  of  a  confessedly  scandalous  character, 
replied,  that  although  "heartily  concurring  with  any  princii)le 
which  would  correct  the  morals  of  our  community,  yet  in  our 
business  we  cannot  afford  the  ill  will  of  any  one,  more  especially 
newspapers."  The  argument,  or,  rather,  the  lind  of  pleading, 
thus  expressed,  is  doubtless  a  prevalent  one.  Nevertheless,  I  fail 
to  perceive  how  we  can  be  true  to  the  Master  whose  name  we  take, 
or  lay  claim  to  that  Christian  manliness  which  ought  to  be  ours, 
or  ever  cast  away  the  abomination  of  demoralizing  literature 
which  is  in  our  midst  and  all  around  us,  if  we  arc  concerned  to 
place  ourselves  U|X)n  no  liigher  plane  than  this. 

Philadelphia,  Second  Monlli  10th,  1885. 


CONCERNING  PRINTED   POISON. 


There  is  a  wise  law  of"  tliis  State — though  it  i.<  a  law 
which  I  am  sorry  to  say  is  very  much  set  at  naught — 
which  provides  that  the  convicts  in  our  penitentiaries  shall 
be  confined  in  separate  cells.  When  visiting  the  peniten- 
tiary in  this  city  several  ^vears  ago,  I  remember  to  have 
geen  in  a  certain  cell  a  middle-aged  man  and  a  fair-haired 
youth.  The  former  was  teaching  the  latter — if  I  remem- 
ber aright — the  art  of  basket  making,  yet  at  the  same  time 
he  so  rallied  the  lad  in  the  language  of  recklessness  and 
bravado,  that  it  was  easy  to  believe  the  boy  would  acquire 
much  more  of  harmful  knowledge  than  of  that  which  would 
be  helpful. 

Now,  all  the  education  in  crime  which  a  boy  or  girl 
might  get  from  old  and  hardened  law-breakers  within  a 
prison  cell,  may  be  freely  obtained  at  hundreds  of  the  news 
stands — the  great  majority  of  them,  in  fact — which  are  to 
be  found  upon  our  city  sidewalks.  ''In  the  old  story 
books,"  said  a  writer,  quoted  in  the  Lcdfjer,  |)erhaps  two 
years  ago,  "it  M'as  assumed  that  truthful- 
ness, lionesty  and  obedience  to  i)arents 
were  virtues,  and  that  the  Christian  religion  was  not  wholly 
devoid  of  merit,"  but,  in  "tlu;  dime  and  half-dime  novels 
of  the  criminal  school,  which  arc  now  read  by  all  (?)  our 
boys  eitiier  openly  or  secretly,  the  pleasures  of  burglary 


The  old  reading  and 
the  new. 


and  luy;li\vay  robhcry,  the  luaiilincss  of  gambling  and  fight- 
ing, and  the  heroism  of  successful  lying  are  set  forth  in 
what  is  regarded  by  youthful  readers  as  glowing  eloquence, 
while  the  great  truths  that  all  parents  are  tyrants,  that  all 
religions  peoj)le  are  hypocrites,  and  that  disobedience  to 
fathers  and  teachers  is  obedience  to  the  nobler  instincts  of 
juvenile  nature,  are  sedulously  taught." 

A  notable  ellect  of  indulgence  in  literature  of  this  de- 
scription, is  to  indispose  the  youthful  mind  to  any  reading 
which  is  not  of  the  like  pernicious  quality.  For  instance, 
the  librarian  of  the  Friends'  Free  Library,  at  Germantown, 
had  a  call  not  long  ago  from  a  fellow-librarian,  who,  hav- 
ing (jucried  what  method  could  be  adopted  for  inducing  the 
young  to  make  choice  of  improving,  or  at  least  not  harm- 
fully-entertaining books,  gave  the  follow- 
ing as  illustrating  the  drift;  toward  the 
simply  sensational :  He  had  assisted  a  lad  to  select  a  book, 
by  recommending  for  his  perusal  a  well-written  work  upon 
a  very  interesting  and  stirring  period  of  English  history. 
The  boy,  however,  ([uickly  brought  back  the  book,  at  the 
same  time  taking  care  to  let  his  adviser  know  that  he  felt 
he  had  been  imposed  upon.  He  would  like  him  to  under- 
stand that  he  had  no  notion  of  giving  up  his  time  to  a 
course  of  dull  reading  like  that! 

There  can  be  no  mistaking  the  direct  agency  of  the  cheap 
and  trashy  reading  matter  of  the  day,  taken  in  connection 
with  variety  theatre  visitation,  in  turning  out  juvenile  mis- 
demeanants and  well  developed  criminals,  and  that  by  the 
wholesale.     Upon  three  lads  arrested  for  highway  robbery 


The  drift  toward  the 
simply  sensational. 


in  Schuylkill  county,  this  State,  there  were  found  four  re- 
volvers, a  number  of  photographs  of  actresses,  and  several 
dime  novels.  In  one  of  our  Philadelphia  public  schools, 
seven  pistols  were  found  in  the  possession  of  as  many  lads, 
whilst  their  stock  of  literature  was  made  up  of  considerably 
over  one  hundi'ed  pernicious  publications.  The  public 
were  some  months  ago  made  acquainted  with  a  Buffalo  Bill 
organization  among  the  lads  of  Milwaukee,  a  revelation 
which  was  stated  to  have  alarmed  the  whole  town  and  ne- 
cessitated an  increase  of  the  police  force.  And  only  yester- 
day came  a  telegram  Irom  Reading,  telling  of  the  arrest  of 
several  little  law-breakers  eight  to  ten  years  of  age,  and 
the  further  discovery  of  a  gang  of  thir- 
teen who  had  been  systematically  robbing 
stores,  factories  and  dwellings.  On  the  east  side  of  the 
city  of  New  York  similar  bands  of  youthful  desperadoes 
are  a  constant  menace  to  the  holders  of  movable  property 
within  the  circuit  of  their  depredations.  The  current  Re- 
port of  the  Penna.  Society  to  Protect  Children  from  Cru- 
elty, referring  to  the  evil  effect  of  "■  flash"  literature  upon 
the  young,  says,  that  "  the  officers  of  the  Society,  in  the 
|)rosccution  of  their  work,  have  frequent  occasion  to  notice 
(he  dreadful  and  pernicious  influence  of  the  cheap  novels 
which  abound  in  our  midst.'' 

In  Paris  tJKjrc  must  have  been  a  rather  uneasy  state  of 
aftiiirs  recently  to  have  prompted  tiie  sending  of  an  ocean 
telegram  telling  of  a  suddenly  developed  and  alarming  in- 
crease of  crime  on  the  part  of  juvenile  thieves,  and  the 
••ailing  out  of  extra  j>atrols  of  nigiit  jxtlicemcn.      P>ut  in 


J 


Flash  literature  and 
juvenile  law-breakers 


passing  it  may  he  said  lierc,  as  was  stated  Wy  the  Livitu/ 
Church,  in  alluding  to  the  remarks  of"  a  speaker  at  thf 
English  Conference  on  Public  Morality,  "the  worst  litera- 
ture for  boys  sold  in  England  consisted  of  reprints  of 
American  stories  and  of  magazines  imported  from  America. 
If  we  did  our  duty  on  this  side  of  the  water,  these  maga- 
zines at  least  would  be  suppressed." 

The  foregoing  remarks  have  reference  to  that  cla.ss  of 
reading  matter  which,  though  exceedingly  pernicious,  and 
presenting  altogether  false  views  of  life,  is  not  necessarily 
tilthy.  Of  the  latter  character  (in  part)  are  the  weeklies 
mainly  devoted  to  police  news,  and  an  occasional  daily 
W'hich  does  not  stick  at  the  surrender  of  decency,  and,  in- 
deed, of  every  moral  principle,  so  it  may  add  to  its  unhal- 
lowed gains.  Said  the  San  Francisco  Chronicle  some 
months  ago :  "  The  publication  of  a  sensational  story 
paper,  which  is  equivalent  to  a  liberal  education  in  crime, 
seems  to  ])e  very  remunerative.  One  of  the  proprietox's  of 
a  notorious  weekly  journal  of  this  stam]> 
died  last  week,  leaving  an  estate  w^hich  is 
valued  at  $1,500,000.  It  would  be  in- 
teresting to  know  how  many  criminals  now  serving  out 
sentences,  owe  their  first  impulse  to  evil  to  this  journal." 
Undoubtedly  there  is  such  a  thing  as  courtesy  of  the 
press,  to  be  observed  in'li  most  liberal  and  generous  sj)irit 
l)etween  fellow  publishers,  but  when  any  one  of  the  latter 
deliberately  issues  that  which  is  vile  and  unclean,  it  is  pro- 
]>er  that  complaisjince  and  brotherly  courtesy  should  give 
]>lace  to  deserved  rebuke.     How  do  we  look  at  this  thing 


Manufacturing  cri 
minals  a  paying  busi 
ness. 


Where  editorial  cour- 
tesy should  give  way 
to  censure. 


in  an  individual  aspect?  "  An  impure  man,  young  or  old,  , 
poisoning  society  where  he  moves  with  his  smutty  stories  (/ 
and  impure  example,  is  a  moral  ulcer,  a  plague  spot,  a 
leper,  who  ought  to  be  treated  as  were  the  lepers  of  old, 
who  were  banished  from  society  and  commanded  to  cry 
*  Unclean,'  as  a  warning  to  save  others  from  the  pestilence." 
Now  if  this  judgment  holds  good  for  a 
single  person,  who  in  his  ordinary  daily 
walk  may  poison  or  impurely  affect  the 
minds  of  fifty  others,  what  is  to  be  said  of  the  paper — 
or,  rather,  the  publisher  of  a  paper — who  daily  sends  out 
an  edition  of  (we  will  say)  fifty  or  one  hundred  thousand 
copies  of  a  sheet  filled  with  all  the  passing  scandal  and  vile- 
ness  that  he  can  rake  together?  Possessed  with,  and  ex- 
ercising, a  power  of  contamination  a  thousand  fold  greater 
than  the  first,  is  not  such  a  "  moral  ulcer"  or  "  plague 
spot"  to  be  far  more  dreaded  in  our  midst  than  would  have 
been  those  miserable  Mongolian  lepers  whose  rumored 
coming  some  six  months  ago  so  roused  our  health  authori- 
ties into  unwonted  activity  ?* 

Having  occasion  to  purchase,  for  the  pur[)oses  of  evidence, 
a  few  puldications  of  the  aforesaid  character  at  several 
stands,  the  keeper  of  one  of  the  latter  said,  when  I  spoke 
of  the  demoralizing  character  of  the  pajier  handed  me: 
"  Yes,  but  we  sell  a  great  many  of  them."  Another  re-  j/ 
plied,  defiantly  :  "  Peoj)!!;  buy  them  eagerly,  sir."    A  third : 

'The  writer  l>elit'ves  it  jiroper  to  state,  that  the  foregoing  para- 
graph is  one  of  llif)se  wliicli  did  not  appear  in  tiie  Ledger  article  at- 
originally  printed. 


10 

"  1  sell  more  of  them  than  any  other,  but  it's  a  very  im- 
moral paper."  Notice  that  well-dressed  lad  in  the  train, 
how  he  draws  himself  apart  from  the  passenger  on  the  seat 
beside  him,  lest  the  debasing  page  which  he  reads  should 
be  scanned  by  other  eyes.  Here  is  an  errand  boy  linger- 
ino-  alona:,  absorbed  in  a  flash  narra'tive  which  he  has  folded 
four-square,  that  it  may  be  quickly  withdrawn  from  or  re- 
placed in  his  pocket.  There,  at  the  eutrances  of  the  open 
The  zeal  of  the  squares  in  the  heart  of  the  city,  or  upon 

sowers  of  trash.  ^.j^g  g^-eat  avcnues  of  travel,  may  be  seen 

at  dusk,  when  crowds  of  artisans,  mechanics,  clerks  and 
shop-girls  are  going  to  their  homes,  the  givers  away  of 
these  pernicious  and  sensational  story  papers.  -Not  so  late 
in  the  day,  when  the  single-.scssion  schools  have  dismissed, 
and  at  the  time  when  market  people  are  returning  across 
the  river,  you  may  perchance  see  these  same  generous 
distributors  at  the  Camden  ferries,  bestowing  the  papers 
upon  those  whom  they  expect  to  become  their  good  cus- 
tomers of  the  future.  Women  busy  with  their  household 
cares,  and  men  with  their  merchandising,  may  be  oblivious 
of  these  things,  yet  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  the  receptive 
minds  of  the  youth  of  this  day  are  being  deeply  sown  with 
the  tares  of  trashy  and  immoral  reading  matter,  so  that  the 
eifect  must  become  evident  in  the  lowering  of  the  moral 
tone  of  the  community  at  large,  and  its  tolerance  of  forms 
of  evil  which  would  not  have  been  endured  by  the  genera- 
tion i)receding. 

In  undertaking  to  define  what  is  pernicious  in  literature, 
and,  in  addition  to  that,  what  is  so  unmistakably  pernicious 


Defining  the  perni- 
cious in  literature. 


11 

US  to  be  fairly  liable  to  legal  inhibition,  every  one  will  be 
prepared  to  admit — with  Postmaster  Hiiidekoper  of  this 
city — that  it  is  "  difficult  to  draw  the  line,  which  [never- 
theless] I  concede  should  be  drawn  somewhere." 

As  to  papers  of  an  obviously  debasing  character,  such  as 
are  those  of  the  police  news  stamp,  the  representative  of 
the  News  Dealers'  Association  lately  said 
to  the  writer,  that  he  did  not  suppose  he 
<'Ould  find  a  dealer  anywhere  who  would  be  willing  to 
stand  up  before  a  Council's  Committee  and  plead  for  a 
continuance  of  those  publications.  And  yet,  notwithstand- 
ing such  prints  as  those  named  are  thus  by  common  con- 
sent condemned  as  absolutely  pernicious,  we  will  probably 
find,  singularly  enough,  nearly  as  many  apologists  for  the 
sale  of  them  as  there  are  dealers.  The  pleas  offered  in  ex- 
tenuation of  this  inconsistency  are  :  (1)  That  the  dealers 
;?imply  aim  to  accommodate  those  of  their  patrons  who  ask 
for  the  corrupting  j)apers,  and  (2),  that  the  dealers'  wives 
and  children  must  not  be  allowed  to  starve. 

To  tlie  latter  sentiment  1  object  (as  one  not  indifferent  to 
considerations  of  humanity),  that  the  material  welfare  of 
several  hundred  dealers'  families  is  thus  made  to  appear  of 
more  moment  tiian  the  moral  well-being  of  the  remaining 
one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  families  resident  in  the 
city,  and  liable  to  be  affected  by  the  demoralizing  literature. 
F'urtlier,  I  believe  that  no  true  woman  would  consent  to 
be  supported  by  a  traffic  which  she  must  certainly  know — 
if  she  has  really  given  serious  thought  to  the  subject — is 
working  desolation   in  (wo  will  say)  the  iiundred  homes  of 


Police  newspapers 
indefensible. 


12 

those  of  her  husband's  patrons  who  take  the  objectionable 
pajHTS.  Siniihwlv  (legradhig  is  the  excuse  which  under- 
takes to  shift  the  responsibility  upon  those  who  see  fit  to 
ask  for  the  papers.  Now,  it  must  be  an  unhealthily  and 
morbidly  excited,  or  a  depraved,  mind, 
which  will  allow  itself  to  waste  precious 
time  in  the  deliberate  perusal  of  a  low  paper  like  the 
Police  Gazette.  But,  a  "  patron"  asks  for  the  poison,  and 
it  is  unhesitatingly  handed  him  by  one  who  very  w^ell 
knows  it  is  unfit  to  be  issued,  and  who  will  not  have  the 
hardihood  to  stand  up  and  formally  defend  it.  It  may 
hence,  with  pertinency  be  asked,  whether  the  dealers  would 
not  far  better  establish  the  sincerity  of  their  acknowledged 
convictions  hereupon,  if,  as  a  body,  they  would  authorita- 
tively condemn  and  refuse  to  handle  every  paper  of  that 
character.  This  position,  I  think,  was  the  one  rightly  taken 
by  the  newsdealers  of  the  town  of  Newburyport,  Mass., 
about  two  years  ago. 

To  the  newsdealers'  defence  may  be  added  the  sentiment 
of  those  who,  while  opposed  to  the  dissemination  of  per- 
nicious literature,  are  solicitous  lest,  by  calling  attention  to 
the  subject,  a  morbid  interest  should  be  excited  therein,  and 
perhaps  more  harm  result  than  good.  If  sensational  and 
otherwise  injudicious  methods  be  resorted  to  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  the  object  aimed  at,  then  the  writer  confesses 
himself  as  holding  the  like  view  respecting  any  agitation  of 
the  evil ;  but,  if  endeavors  to  overcome  this  iniquity  be 
undertaken  in  the  fear  of  the  Lord,  and  with  a  pure  desire 
to  save  the  souls  of  one's  fellows,  theii  I  apprehend  that 


13 

the  accountability  for  any  mischief  incidentally  arising  from 
the  publicity  thus  given  will  be  very  properly  chargeable 
upon  the  "  workers  of  iniquity,"  the  originators  and  pro- 
moters of  the  mischief. 

As  to  the  other  class  of  pernicious  literatare — the  dime 
and  the  half-dime  novels,  the  sensational  story  papers, 
filled  with  talk  of  detectives,  and  the  criminal  exploits  of 
cow-boys,  and  the  like — these,  though  not  usually  indecent, 
are,  as  has  been  said  before,  unmistakably  demoralizing  in 
the  strongest  sense.  Few  people,  perhaps,  realize  to  what 
an  extent  the  issue  of  these  publications  increases  year  by 
year,  or  have  any  conception  of  the  sum  of  the  mischief 
that  they  surely  inflict.  When,  about  eight  years  ago, 
J.  T.  Fields,  in  a  lecture  delivered  at  Boston,  referred  to  an 
interview  he  had  had  with  the  boy-murderer,  Pomeroy, 
in  which  the  latter  spoke  of  his  vicious  career  as  being  largelv 
due  to  the  influence  of  the  many  sensational  stories  of  adven- 
ture and  violence  he  had  read,  the  account  was  sent  all  over 
the  country,  producing  a  marked  sensation.  To-day,  how- 
ever, such  recitals  are  of  so  common  occurrence  as  scarcely  to 
excite  remark.  It  was  not  many  months  ago  that  there 
appeared  the  statement,  given  on  the  au- 
thority of  the  chaplain  of  the  Indiana 
State  Prison,  that  of  the  120  convicts 
lately  in  the  prison  enclosure,  76  per  cent.  attril)nted  theii 
downfall  in  great  measure  to  the  corrupting  influence  of 
the  vile  and  otherwise  pernicious  literature  which  tliev  had 
read. 

In  "drawing  the  line,"  therefore,  ought  not  such  publi- 


Flash  story  papers 
morally  and  legally 
condemned. 


J 


leir      I 
•,  of  J 


\J 


14 

cations  as  the  foregoing,  to  be  subjeet  to  exclusion  ?  Tliis 
is  the  view  taken  by  some  of  tlie  raih'oad  corporations,  one 
of  the  hirgest  and  best  regulated  of  which,  defining  the 
"  pernicious"  which  it  will  not  perniit  on  its  trains,  says  : 
"The  j)rohibition  covers  not  merely  what  is  indecent  or 
obscene,  but  also  all  that  class  of  tni.^hy,  sensaUotial  literxi- 
tiire  which  has  wrecked  the  happiness  of  so  many  homes." 
But  further,  according  to  the  Chicago  Interocean  (1882), 
"The  Supreme  Court  has  decided  that  '  the  liberty  of  the 
press'  guaranteed  by  the  Constitution,  was  not  intended  to 
include  the  publication  of  articles  injurious  to  the  morals 
of  the  public,  or  advertisements  of  an  immoral  character. 
This  decision  was  upon  one  of  the  Anthony  Comstock  cases, 
and  it  practically  justifies  the  movement  for  the  suppression 
of  demoralizing  as  well  as  obscene  literature."* 

So,  Chief  Justice  Story,  adverting  to  the  (first)  constitu- 
tional amendment,  guaranteeing  the  liberty  of  the  press, 
declares  :  "  To  admit  that  this  amendment 
was  intended  to  secure  to  every  citizen  an 
absolute  right  to  speak,  or  write,  or  print 
i  whatever  he  might  please,  without  any  responsibility  there- 
for, is  a  sup])Osition  too  wild  to  be  indulged  in  by  any 
reasonable  man."  With  which  agreeth  the  dictum  of  Jus- 
\  tice  Blackstone,  that,  as  "  A  man  may  be  allowed  to  keej) 
poisons  in  his  closet,  but  not  publicly  to  vend  them  as  cor- 
dials"— "so  true  will  it  be  found,  that  to  censure  licen- 
tiousness is  to  maintain  the  liberty  of  the  press." 

*  General  Circular  No.  5  of  the  American  Railway  Literary  Union 
and  Pure  Literature  Bureau,  pp.  14  and  20. 


Suppressing  the  per- 
nicious is  not  "  muz- 
zling the  press." 


16 

While  it  may  not  he  that  this  city  of  Penn  is  destined  to 
reach  the  low  moral  plane  of  the  Niimidian  city  of  Sicca 
Veneria,  or  of  ancient  Autioch  in  the  days  of  its  luxury 
and  infamy,  yet  the  tendency  since  (and  as  a  legacy  of)  the 
civil  war,  has  been  downward,  rather  than  the  reverse. 
Hence,  though  there  is  obvious  need  of  a  more  diligent  exe- 
cution of  the  laws  against  vice  and  immorality,  there  is  not 
less  a  call  to  more  faithfulness  on  the  part  of  citizens  indi- 
vidually as  stimulating  thereto.  When  those  charged 
with  the  execution  of  the  laws  are  conscious  that,  as  touch- 
ing matters  pertaining  to  public  morals,  the  community  at 
large  don't  care,  the  officers  also  will,  almost  surely,  be  cor- 
respondingly indifferent.  To  illustrate  :  The  writer  of  this, 
not  many  weeks  ago,  observing  a  policeman  gazing  with  a 
good  deal  of  apparent  interest  at  a  large  and  decidedly  in- 
decent show  bill  across  the  street,  asked  him  whether  he 
thought  the  law  permitted  an  exposure  of  that  character. 
He  remarked  in  reply  that  he  was  "just  wondering  whether 
it  wasn't  'most  too  bad,"  yet  did  not  offer  to  do  anvthiug 
in  the  way  of  relief  In  a  second  case  an  appeal  to  a  simi- 
lar ])oster-struck  officer  elicited  the  response  that  the  Dis- 
trict Lieutenant  had  better  l)c  spoken  to.  He  did  not  pro- 
pose to  do  anything  himself  In  a  third 
instance,  where  com))laint  was  made  to  a 
Lieutenant,  no  result  followed;  so  that,  though  these  and 
other  debasing  show  bills  were  eventually  removed  by  the 
Mayor,  such  action  was  only  effected  through  the  personal 
attention  of  the  citizen,  and  not  of  the  officer  charged  with 
and  paid  to  attend  to  the  duty. 


Indecent  posters  and 
apathetic  patrolmen. 


16 

While  speaking  of  this  phase  of  my  subject,  it  may  be 
pertinent  to  quote  from  a  hite  paper  which,  referring  to  a 
reeent  removal  of  some  immoral  pictures  by  the  Mayor  of 
the  city  of  Richmond,  nsmarks :  "  Tiiere  are  few  worse 
temptations  to  vice  and  immorality  than  immodest  pictures 
and  to  have  such  thrown  in  our  eyes  as  we  walk  the  streets 
is  an  outrage.  '.Citizen'  tells  us  that  our  Mayor  ordered 
some  su(;h  to  be  destroyed  when  his  attention  was  called  to 
them.  But  why  was  it  necessary  that  the  Mayor  should 
have  his  attention  called  to  a  matter  that  he  had  the  same 
eyes  to  see  that  other  citizens  had?  It  is  the  duty  of  our 
civil  officers  to  attend  to  all  matters  of  public  decency  with- 
out having  to  be  urged  on  by  others.  We  hope  our  Mayor 
will  hereafter  need  no  advice  from  others  about  such  mat- 
tei"S,  but  of  his  own  accord,  and  because  it  is  his  bounden 
duty,  forbid  all  nasty  and  immodest  pictures  to  be  cast  in 
our  faces,  as  has  been  done  in  this  city." 

It  may  be  remarked  here  that  the  Mayor  of  Philadelphia 
expresses  a  willingness,  and,  indeed,  a  wish  to  effect  the  re- 
moval of  all  debasing  pictures  visible  from  the  sidewalks  as 
soon  as  the  measure  now  under  consideration  by  Councils, 
/  and  which  shall  confer  fuller  power  than  he  believes  he 
now  possesses,  shall  have  been  passed.  Meanwhile,  how- 
ever, "an  indeceijt  show-bill,"  as  was 
aptly  said  by  the  Record,  very  lately, 
"  means  an  indecent  show."  By  closinty 
the  latter — to  do  which  there  is  unquestionable  and  ex- 
plicit power — the  issuance  of  the  obnoxious  posters  will  be 
stopped  absolutely.     Without  any  dtuibt,  these  lewd  posters 


An  indecent  show 
bill  means  an  inde- 
cent show. 


17 

are  designed  to  stir  up  lascivious  thougins,  and  to  draw  all 
who  incline  that  way  to  the  chambers  of  death. 

The  annual  report  (1884)  of  the  "Midnight  Mission," 
of  this  city,  after  stating  that  the  fearful  increase  of  the 
social  evil  is  almost  incredible,  says,  in  speaking  of  the 
causes  therefor:  "The  vile,  flashy  literature,  sown  broad- 
c{ist  over  the  land,  co'ntaining  narratives  of  elopements, 
l)etrayals  and  seductions,  depicted  in  a  sensational,  spicy, 
romantic  manner,  must  also  be  held  responsible.  Our  city 
authorities  deserve  the  greatest  censure  for  allowing  the 
sale  of  this  fatal  poison,  as  well  as  the  display  of  obscene 
and  sensuous  show-bills,  which  greet  the  eye  in  almost 
every  direction." 

The  "individual  faithfulness"  referred  to  above,  shou]<l, 
T  believe,  impel  those  who  have  any  pronounced  convic- 
tions against  the  demoralizing  literature  of  the  news  stands, 
not  to  patronize  any  of  such  stands  where  the  police  news- 
papers or  the  trashy  story  papers  in  quantity  are  exposed 
for  sale.  And  yet  I  am  bound  to  certify  that,  in  the  mile's 
distance  between  the  newspaper  publication  offices  which 
cluster  about  Seventh  and  Chestnut  streets,  and  the  railroad 
dej)ot  Avhich  the  writer  regularly  uses,  he  docs  not  know  of 
a  single  news  stand  or  shop  for  the  sale  of  newspapers 
whereat  either  the  so-called  "  blood  and  thunder"  literature 
or  tlu;  immoral  paj)ers  of  the  police  news  stamp  are  not 
kept.  It  may  not  be  altogether  convenient  ^,,,^,,^^^,  ,,,,,„,. ' 
or  pleasant  to  dis])ense  at  times  with  one's  "®^^  ^^^  s*"^^*  ""''■ 
favorite  mrtrning  or  afternoon  paper,  but  what  is  a  person's 
testimony   for   the   truth,  in   any   connection,  worth    if  it 

2 


IS 


,I(K'sii't  now  ami  tlic-ii  l>riu<i  with  it  a  greater  or  less  degree 
of  ineonvenienec  or  troiible-taking  or  even  hardship? 
Asking  indulgence  for  citing  ])ers()nal  experiences  in  point, 
1  will  say  that  one  day  during  the  past  summer,  being  in 
Trenton  with  some  friends  who  were  going  the  round  of 
one  of  the  extensive  pottery  works  at  that  place,  the  writer 
desired  to  obtain  a  daily  paper  to*  read  during  the  hour 
whilst  he  awaited  the  return  of  his  companions.  He 
walked  half  a  mile  or  more,  passing  several  news-dealers' 
shops,  but,  as  papers  of  the  immoral  or  highly  sensational 
sort  were  displayed  in  the  windows  of  all,  he  made  no  pur- 
chase. A  little  later,  being  at  a  large  town  on  the  Hudson, 
and  wishing  to  obtain  a  certain  book  which  was  to  be  had 
of  one  dealer  only,  on  the  busy  main  street  of  the  place,  he 
entered,  and  was  about  to  ask  for  the  volume,  when,  notic- 
ino-  the  obnoxious  police  newspapers  disposed  in  piles  on 
the  counter  before  him,  he  had  to  say  that  though  ])urpos- 
inff  to  ask  for  a  book,  he  did  not  feel  at  libertv  to  deal 
where  literatui-e  so  hurtful  to  the  community  was  sold. 

As  instancing  what  Avatchfulness  is  called  for  on  behalf 
of  the  voung,  I  will  state  that,  not  long  since,  when  speak- 
ing to  a  friend  upon  the  topic  of  pernicious  literature,  I 
stated  this  fact :  that,  being  in  a  barber's  shop  several  years 
ago,  I  had  observed  his  son  come  in,  and,  while  waiting  to 
be  served,  that  he  had  picked  up  for  perusal  a  Police  Gazette 
from  among  several  other  papers  lying  on  the  table.  I  had 
not' forgotten  the  painful  impression,  together  with  the  feel- 
ingof  solicitude,  which  the  little  incident  had  then  awakened. 
He  rejoined,  that  he,  himself,  was  in  the  habit  of  patroniz- 


Watchfulness     on 
behalf  of  the  young. 


19 

iDg  the  same  shop,  ami  that  the  last  tinu-  he  was  there, 
there  were  no  others  but  police  newspapers  upon  the  table. 
If  that  be  so,  was  replied,  my  two  little  boys  M^ho  occasion- 
ally go  to  the  same  place,  will  have  to  be  hioked  after, 
for  they  have  reached  an  age  M'hen  they  may  be  susceptible 
to  danger  from  such  things.  In  a  very  few  days  the  duty 
was  attended  to,  several  of  the  papers 
named  being  found  upon  the  table,  as 
stated.  The  proprietor,  averting  his  face,  said  he  had  not 
thought  anything  seriously  on  the  subject — he  would  not 
to  be  sure,  have  such  papers  go  into  his  own  family — and 
he  certainly  didn't  want  to  do  anything  to  injure  any  of 
his  customers.  But,  it  was  replied,  thou  dost  keep  them, 
notwitlistanding,  where  they  may  work  moral  damage  to  ^^/ 
the  children  of  other  peoples'  families.  I  went  away,  but. 
upon  revisiting  the  place  some  weeks  later,  was  gratified  to 
observe  that  the  objectionable  papers  had  disappeared, — 
the  proprietor,  this  time,  squarely  meeting  ray  gaze  as  I 
expressed  my  approval  of  his  action.  Evidently,  he  had 
not  seriously. considered  the  full  measure  of  the  accounta- 
i)ility  which  he  incurred  through  the  exposure  of  such  vile 
pajiers.  But,  the  same  Book  of  Truth  which  assures  a  bless- 
ing to  ''the  pure  in  heart — for  they  shall  see  God,"  has  also 
declared  concerning  the  Holy  City  of  which  the  Lamb  is 
the  light  thereof,  that  "there  shall  in  no  wise  enter  into  it 
any  thing  that  dcfileth,  neither  whaiS(»cvcr  workcth  abomi- 
nation, or  maketh  a  lie."* 

The  editor  of  tlie  Barber's  Journal,  Philadelpliia,  liaving  received 
a  eiijiy  of  tln'   lirst   cililioii  of  this   icimplilct,  with  thf  IVncijoin}^  ]):ir!i- 


20 

It  seems  to  the  writer,  therefore,  that  increased  care  is 
called  for  on  the  part  of  the  conscientious  patrons  of  the 
newsdealers  in  order  to  the  effective  working  of  any  pre- 
sent or  prospective  law  touching  pernicious  publications. 
At  the  same  time  something  may  be  done  toward  early 
teaching  the  little  ones  .hereupon.  Thus,  a  good  woman 
told  me  of  her  little  niece,  of  only  five  summers,  who,  hav- 
ing observed  that  trashy  papers  thrown  into  the  vestibule 
or  slipped  under  the  door  were  always  summarily  disposed 
of,  one  day  picked  up  one  of  that  sort  herself,  and,  crumpling 
it  in  her  little  hands,  carried  it  to  the  gutter,  and  dropped 
it  therein  with  evident  satisfaction.  A  mother  wrote  to 
me  of  her  little  daughter,  not  much  older  than  the  one 
just  mentioned  :  "  She  came  to  me  a  short  time  ago  in  great 
distress  because  our  domestic  was  reading  [a  pernicious  pa- 
per], and,  watching  her  opportunity  when 
she  laid  it  down,  destroyed  it,  telling  the 
girl  that  our  Heavenly  Father  was  very  much  grieved  at 
any  one  reading  those  '  bad  man  papers,'  as  she  calls  them." 
Again  :  the  distributor  of  "  trash"  had  passed  along  the. 
suburban  street  where  I  dwell,  dropping  at  each  door  one 
of  those  many  mischievous  publications  of  Munro — a  Fire- 
side Companion.     The  one  thrust  into  my  house  was  being 

graph  marked,  published  a  long  and  able  editorial  upon  the  responsi- 
bility of  the  trade  in  this  connection,  confidently  averring  that  on  the 
tables  of  fully  three-fifths  of  the  nearly  G5,000  barber  shops  in  the 
United  States,  immoral  or  trashy  papers  would  be  found.  Believing 
them  capable  of  "  working  a  vast  deal  of  harm,"  he  advises  the  barbers 
to  "inirn  those  you  have  on  hand,  and  use  your  voice  and  influence  in 
ridding  our  land  of  this  great  evil." 


Instructing  the  young 
in  conscientiousness. 


21 

torn  into  diminutive  bits  by  an  employ^,  according  to  her 
iiabit;  seeing  whicli  a  little  miss  who  happened  in  from 
next  door,  spoke  up,  "  We  always  put  them  into  the  fire." 
This  latter,  it  is  consoling  to  know,  is  the  summary  dis- 
position which  is  properly  made  of  many  of  these  papers. 

Brief  reference  to  law  upon  the  subject  will  conclude  this 
article.  The  evil,  as  is  universally  acknowledged,  is  gen- 
eral, and  legal  correctives,  beyond  what  are  found  on  most 
statute  books,  are  likewise  conceded  to  be  called  for.  A 
municipality  claiming  any  right  in  law  to  legislate  upon 
bay-windows  and  swinging  signs  as  encroachments  upon 
the  sidewalks,  has  surely  not  less  the  right  to  banish  filthy 
pictures  and  demoralizing  publications  from  the  same  pub- 
lic places.  "We  will  not  say /^  observed  the  loidependent, 
the  j)resent  month,  in  discussing  this  subject,  "that  the 
world  belongs  to  the  saints,  and  that  they  have  a  commis- 
sion to  rule  it.  But  we  respond  to  as  much  of  that  opinion 
as  is  involved  in  the  proposition  that  the  moralities  and  de- 
cencies are  sovereign  things,  and  that,  in  their  name  and 
Ity  their  authority,  decent  people  ought  to  insist  on  ruling- 
society.  The  streets  must  be  made  safe  for  boys  and  young- 
women.  Could  the  people  know  the  full  extent  of  this 
evil,  it  is  not  out  of  the  j)robabilitics  that  here,  in  demo- 
cratic America,  they  would  propose  some  kind  of  a  censor- 
slii])  to  stoj)  it." 

To  American  minds  accustomed  to  connect  the  censorshi}) 
of  the  j)ress  with  publications  jjrohibited  (as  at  J\'iris  and 
St.  I\'tersburgj  Ibr  ))olitical  reasons,  or,  as  with  the  Index 
Expurgatoriv.s  of  t\ie  Roman  curia,  for  niligious  or  sectarian 


Plans  of  relief  by  law. 


22 

considemtions,  u  .suggtstioii  ul"  this  nature  might  not  at  the 
first  view  find  entrance.  Nevertheless,  as  every  careful 
parent  and  every  rightly  constituted  board  of  library  mana- 
gers does  exercise  just  such  a  censorship,  why  ought  not 
a  nmniciijality  or  State  possess  the  like 
jurisdiction  in  the  interests  of  common  de- 
cency, over  what  is  exposed  or  offered  upon  the  public  side- 
walks? A  board  of  ten  or  twelve  examiners  or  censors 
(both  men  and  women),  named  by  the  judges  from  lists 
furnished' by  the  representative  bodies,  of  the  several  relig- 
ious denominations,  and  whose  power  to  prohibit  would  ex- 
tend only  to  the  indecent  and  positively  pernicious,  and  not 
at  all  to  matters  of  religious  belief  or  politics,  might,  it  would 
seem,  be  safelv  welcomed  by  every  truly  concerned  parent- 
We  may  not  be  prepared  to  accept  this  method  of  relief, 
nor  the  jdan  of  contracts,  with  (unpaid)  permits,  similar  to 
those  in  operation  between  the  news  agents  and  railroad 
companies  upon  many  thou.sand  miles  of  railway.  It  is 
not  the  purpose  of  this  article  to  discuss  those  points. 
Nevertheless,  relief  ?s  urgently  called  for;  and  if  the  law 
makers  of  the  city  of  Brotherly  Love  can  formulate  and 
enact  a  really  effective  and  judicious  measure,  which  shall 
operate  to  banish  manifestly  pernicious  prints  and  publica- 
tions from  our  thoroughfares,  they  will  not  only  have 
helj)ed  themselves  with  that  charity  which  begins  at  home, 
hut  they  w'ill  have  also  performed  an  eminent  service  for 
every  other  community  which  is  afflicted  with  this  great 
moral  distemper  of  printed  ])oison. 

J.  W.  L. 

(icrriiimt(jwn,  Twclftli  niontli,  18S4. 


OF  LOCAL   HAPPENING. 


In  narrating  the  following  facts  of  a  partly  personal  character,  the  writer  disclaims 
any  wish  either  to  magnify  the  slight  service  into  which  he  was  called,  or  to  have  it 
inferred  that  so  far  as  his  connection  went  that  service  was  performed  in  the  wisest  or 
best  manner,  or,  again,  that  a  similar  procedure  may  be  advantageously  followed  in 
other  places.  The  ways  and  the  times  for  rightly  testifying  to  any  truth,  or  upholding 
any  principle,  may  safely  be  left,  in  individual  cases,  to  the  guiding  hand  of  Him  who 
both  puts  forth  and  restrains,  and  whose  prescience  sees  the  end  from  the  beginning. 

In  the  Autumn  of  1882,  the  writer  having  been  called 
to  serve  upon  the  Grand  Jury  of  the  Quarter  Sessions 
Court,  opportunity  was  offered  him  through  the  medium 
of  the  final  presentment,  to  call  public  attention  to  the  sub- 
ject of  pernicious  papers  and  posters.  Special  reference  was 
therein  made  to  the  news-stand  within  the  new  City  Hall 
— not,  indee<l,  because  it  was  an  offender  beyond  most 
others,  but  owing  to  the  fact  of  its  being  upon  the  city's 
inime<liate  ])roj)erty.  The  stand  was  mostly  closed  during 
1883,  but,  having  i)een  re-opened  last  year,  the  Avriter  ad- 
dressed a  petition  to  City  Councils  early  in  the  summer, 
lurking  for  the  passage  of  a  resolution  requesting  the  Com- 
missioners of  Public  Buildings  to  j)rohibit  papers  of  an  im- 
moral character  at  said  stand,  "particularly  in  view  of  the 
I'act  of  its  being  located  upon  j)ublic  pro})erty,  and  under  the 
very  shelter  of  the  nuinicij)al  lialls  <)f  justice  and  legis- 
lation."    Action    was    pron)ptly    taken    by  Councils,    the 


Sale  of  police  pa- 
pers prohibited  at  the 
City  Hall.  Phila. 


24 

resolution  to  the  Public  Buildings'  Commission  was  passed 
without  opposition,  and  the  Police  Gazette,  Police  Neics, 
and  Illustrated  Times  were  thereupon  pro- 
hibited, and  have  not  (to  the  writer's 
knowledge)  been  exposed  for  sale  at  the 
place  named,  since.  A  helpful  precedent  was  thus  estab- 
lished.^^ 

About  a  month  later,  the  writer  believed  it  his  place  to 
call  the  attention  of  the  representative  meetings  of  several 
religious  bodies — as  the  Friends,  Presbyterians  and  Bap- 
tists— to  the  fact  that  at  the  news-stand  in  the  ncM^  City 
Post  Office,  objectionable  })npers,  such  as  above  referred  to, 
were  on  sale,  and  desiring  their  concurrence  in  bringing  the 
matter  to  the  notice  of  the  Government  authorities.  This 
was  proposed  to  be  done,  not  simply  with  the  object  of  se- 
curing the  prohibition  of  immoral  papers  at  that  particular 
stand,  but  with  the  hope  that  "a  rule  might  issue  of  a  gen- 
eral character  upon  the  matter,  operative  in  a^ll  post-offices 
owned  or  leased  by  the  United  States  Government,  and  in 
which  the  right  of  the  Government's  oversight  and  regula- 
tion of  the  news-stands  could  not  be  contested."  Likewise, 
"  that  the  promulgation  of  such  a  rule  on  the  part  of  the 
Post  Office  Department  would  be  of  great  value  as  a  pre- 
cedent, and  that  it  would  very  much  aid  State  Governments, 
Councils  in  cities,  and  local  communities  everywhere  in 
dealing  with  an  evil  which  must  he  met.'' 

*  The  Attorney-General  of  Illinois  has  lately  published  an  opinion 
that  the  three  papers  above  named  are  obscene  sheets,  whose  circula- 
tion should  be  suppressed  under  existing  laws. 


Prohibition  at  Phil- 
adelphia Post-otfice. 


Tlie  religious  bodies  named  above  cordially  united  in  the 
proposed  recommendation,  and  in  consequence  of  the  repre- 
sentations thereupon  made  (to  the  Secretary  of  tiie  Treasury, 
as  charged  with  the  care  of  the  Government  buildings)  the 
Postmaster  at  Philadelphia  was  notified  to  "issue  such  in- 
structions as  will  prohibit  the  display  or  sale  of  all  publica- 
tions of  the  character  referred  to."  With 
respect  to  tlie  further  suggestion  likewise 
made  to  the  Department  by  the  above  remonstrants  rela- 
tive to  a  general  rule  upon  the  subject,  Assistant  Secretary 
Coon  stated,  that  as  authority  had  been  given  in  but  a  very 
limited  number  of  instances  to  erect  such  stands,  "prompt 
measures  will  be  taken  to  abate  the  nuisance,"  should  com- 
j)laint  be  made  to  the  Department  that  demoralizing  litera- 
ture is  offered  for  sale  at  any  of  the  allowed  places.  Our 
Postmaster  at  once  prohibited  at  the  stand  the  several  is- 
sues of  papers  of  the  police  news  stamp — a  prohibition 
which  has  been  absolutely  res})ected,  so  far  at  least  as  the 
same  is  apparent  to  outward  observation.  It  is  to  be  hoped 
that  the  contenders  for  decency  in  other  large  cities  where 
post-office  stands  are  allowed,  will  be  watchful  to  secure 
and  to  maintain  similar  exemption. 

Next,  with  the  opening  of  the  play-houses  in  the  autumn, 
there  came  the  usual  display  of  indecent  show-bills,  adver- 
tising them.  The  writer  made  sundry  complaints  to  the 
Mayor  respecting  these  demoralizing  productions,  securing 
the  removal  of  tiiose  which  he  definitely  specified.  It  was 
seen,  however,  that  as  the  offenders  had  but  little  fear  of 
any  penalty  being  imposed,  there  was  a  disposition  to  put 


26 

otluT  placiuxls  and  show-bills,  equally  objectionable,  in  the 

place  of  those  ordered   down.     Further,  the  Mayor  hav- 

ino;  expressed   the    belief  that    his    authority  to   prohibit 

,  .      ,     ,  immoral   prints  when    displayed    within 

Indecent  posters  re-  t  . 

•"o*ed.  r^  building — as    in  the  show-windows  of 

saloons,  cigar  stores,  stationers'  shops,  etc., — w^as  not  clearly 
defined,  the  writer  judged  it  well  to  bring  the  whole  matter 
to  the  attention  of  Councils.  With  that  object  in  view, 
and  at  the  same  time  to  enlist  the  sympathies  of  parents 
and  teachers  in  the  important  subject,  the  following  memo- 
rial was  submitted  to  the  Board  of  Education: 

To  the  Board  of  Education: 

Not  many  days  ago,  the  undersigned  was  the  recipient 
of  a  letter  from  a  Christian  mother  of  this  city,  who,  in  re- 
ferring to  the  fact  that  our  public  sidewalks  are  rendered 
morally  unsafe  for  the  young,  by  reason  of  the  pernicious 
posters  and  periodicals  that  are  so  abundantly  displayed  or 
offered  for  sale  thereupon,  also  observed  that  this  subject 
had  lain  for  years  like  a  weight  upon  her  mind  ;  that  she 
had  noted  with  extreme  solicitude  how  the  purity  of  the 
young  had  been  imperilled  by  these  contaminating  things; 
and  that,  though  herself  but  a  weak  woman,  she  could  at 
least  sup])licate  for  a  blessing  upon  all  right  endeavors  to 
rid  our  fair  city  of  this  abounding  pest  of  demoralizing 
pictures  and  prints. 

In  bringing  this  matter  briefly  to  your  attention,  I  M'ould 
say  that  the  very  serious  concern  which  this  one  lady  ex- 
pressed, is,  I  suppose,  such  an  one  as  has  been  felt,  to  a 


The  Board  of  Edu- 
cation memorialized. 


greater  or  less  degree,  by  thousands  of  parents  whose  chil- 
dren attend  the  schools  of  Philadelphia.  Knowing  that 
jmictical  measures  for  abating  the  evil  have,  of  late,  been 
either  adopted  or  are  in  course  of  adop- 
tion in  Xew  York,  Chicago^  Pittsburg, 
Hartford  and  other  American  cities,  it  would  appear  as 
though  there  should  be  no  further  delay  in  securing  for 
this  community  the  passage  of  some  general  enactment  for- 
bidding the  use  of  our  public  sidewalks  by  reckless  or  un- 
principled men  for  the  display  or  sale  of  their  debasing 
works.  And  here  it  will  not  be  out  of  place  to  refer  to  the 
pathetic  words  of  the  founder  of  our  Commonwealth,  who, 
when  about  to  leave  his  city  of  Philadelphia,  just  two 
hundred  years  ago  (1684),  feelingly  said  :  "  What  love, 
what  care,  what  service,  and  what  travail  has  there  been 
to  bring  thee  forth  and  preserve  thee  from  such  as  would 
abuse  and  defile  thee !  Oh,  that  thou  mayst  be  kept  from 
the  evil  that  would  overwhelm  thee !" 

Believing;  that  the  Board  of  Education  rcco<»;nize,  and  are 
not  indifferent  to,  the  obviously  mischievous  influence  upon 
the  school  children  of  the  debasing,  brutalizing  and  crime- 
inciting  pictures  and  ])ublications  to  be  seen  upon  or  about 
our  sidewalks,  your  addressor  respectfully  and  earnestly 
suggests  that,  as  a  body  watchful  of  the  best  interests  of 
our  public  school  j)Opulati(»n,  you  submit  this  matter  to  the 
attention  of  City  Councils.  Having  had  occasion  lately  to 
reniark  the  unanimity  with  which  that  body  acted  in  re- 
questing the  Public  Buildings  Commissioners  to  prohibit 
the  sale  of  Police  Gazettes  and  like  papers,  upon  certain  city 


28 

property,  and  having  been  personally  assured  by  the  Mayor 
that  he  is  very  desirous  that  u  prohibitory  measure  of  gen- 
eral character,  relative  to  pernicious  posters  and  papers,  be 
enacted,  I  have,  therefoi-e,  no  doubt  that  Councils  will 
promptly  grant  relief  in  the  premises  so  soon  as  the  sub- 
ject shall  have  been  formally  brought  before  them. 
Very  respectfully,  your  friend  and  fellow-citizen, 
(.Jermantown,  11th  raontli  10th,  1884. 

The  foregoing  communication  received  the  prompt  ap- 
|)roval  of  the  Board,  and,  with  a  comprehensive  resolution, 
which  was  also  adopted,  was  directed  to  be  forwarded  to 
Councils.  The  Methodist  Preachers'  Meeting  expressed 
its  unity  with  the  action  of  the  Board  in  resolutions  which 
were  presented  to  Councils  at  the  same  time.  The  Minis- 
ters' Meeting  of  the  Baptist  denomination  appointed  a  com- 
mittee to  aid  in  the  matter  as  the  way  opened,  whilst  a 
representative  body  of  the  Society  of  Friends,  which  had 
Unity  expressed  by  ^^^'^  laboring  in  this  direction  for  a  num- 
the  religious  bodies.  |^gj.  ^j-  ,„onths,  also  memorialized  Councils 
upon  the  subject.  Of  probably  equal  weight  with  any  of 
the  above  requests  for  (city)  legislative  relief,  was  the  fol- 
lowing petition  signed  by  the  well-known  locomotive- 
building  firm  of  Burnham,  Parry,  Williams  &  Co.,  and  by 
several  hundreds  of  the  employees  (many  of  them  parents) 
in  their  offices  and  shops.  The  memorial  was  accompanied 
by  a  note,  wiiich.  in  apologizing  for  the  necessarily  soiled 
appearance  of  the  document,  concluded  that  a  little  dirt  of 
that  character  would  be  overlooked  in  view  of  the  fact  that 


29 

the   foulness  it  sought    to    oveix'ome  was  so  exceedingly 
greater.     The  paper  reads  thus  : 

"  The  memorial  of  the  undersigned,  members  of  the  firm, 
and  employees  in  the  ofifice  and  shops  of  The  Baldwin 
Locx)MOTiVE  Works,  sets  forth  :  That  we  have  viewed 
with  wonder  and  serious  concern  the  way  in  which  the 
privilege  of  displaying  posters  and  of  offering  for  sale  news- 
paper and  magazine  literature  upon  or  about  our  public 
sidewalks,  has  been  abused,  both  by  the  exposure  of  pic- 
tures of  an  indecent  and  brutalizing  character,  as  well  as  of 
publications  of  an  immoral,  highly  sensational,  and  (rightly 
termed)  '  blood  and  thunder'  sort ;  that  we  believe  these 
publications  and  pictures  to  be  unmistakably  demoralizing 
in  their  character,  being  aimed  at  the  purity  of  the  people, 
a  menace  to  orderly  government  in  homes  and  schools,  and 
direct  inciters  to  crime;  that,  whilst  amazed  at  the  immu- 
nity hitherto  allowed  to  men  of  depraved  minds  thus  to  ex- 
pose and  spread  abroad  their  pernicious  productions,  we 
have,  nevertheless,  observed  with  great 
satisfiiction,  the  action  taken  by  the  Board 
of  Education  in  definitely  calling  attention 
to  the  evil  ;  and,  finally,  that  in  the  words  of  the  resolution 
unanimously  adopted  by  that  body,  and  in  the  confidence 
that  their  and  our  eminently  reasonable  request  will  not  be 
unheeded,  me  also  earnestly  desire  that  you  will  '  with 
promptitude  devise  some  mejisure  for  abating  the  alarm- 
ing and  growing  evil  referred  to.'  " 

Meanwhile,  two  bills  upon  the  subject  have  been  brought 


Memorial  from   the 
Baldwin     Locomotive  C^^ 
Works. 


Relief  measures  be 
fore  Councils. 


30 

l)efore  (Councils:  one  by  Select  Councilman  John  H.  Gra- 
luun  (introduced  by  request),  and  the  other,  by  Common 
Councihnan  Thomas  Meehan,  by  whom  it  was  prepared. 
Both  were  referred  to  the  Committees  on  Law,  before  whom 
a  iiearini;-  of  the  favorers  and  the  opposers  (in  whole  or  in 
part)  of  the  proposed  legislation  Mas  had.  It  is  not  im- 
l)robabIe  that  an  ordinance  embodying  portions  of  ea(;h  bill 
may  be  eventually  recommended  by  the  Committee.  The 
''  Graham  bill,"  as  its  special  feature,  provides  that  a.  permit 
(uncharged)  shall  be  required  to  be  taken  out  by  every  per- 
son who  shall  open  or  maintain  "any 
news-stand,  stall  or  shop  for  the  sale  of 
newspapers,  magazines,  story  papers  and  similar  printed 
matter  on  any  public  street  or  passage-way  of  the  city;" 
that  every  person  so  intending  as  above,  shall  subscribe  in 
writing  to  the  contract  not  to  sell,  lend,  give  away,  or  offer 
to  give  away,  or  keep,  or  exhibit  to  the  view  any  immoral 
or  pernicious  prints  or  other  productions  of  the  character 
specified  in  the  bill ;  that  the  permit  shall  receive  tlie  signa- 
ture of  the  Mayor  in  addition  to  that  of  the  responsible  pro- 
prietor of  the  news-stand,  &c.;  that  it  shall  have  upon  it  the 
exact  location  of  said  stand  ;  that  the  whole  of  the  ordinance 
shall  be  printed  upon  and  made  a  part  of  the  permit,  and  be 
kept  in  a  frame  or  mounted  on  heavy  card-board,  and  shall 
be  "so  hung  up,  nailed  up,  or  otherwise  conspicuously  ex- 
posed to  the  unobstructed  view  as  to  be  readily  seen  and 
read."  The  penalty  for  violating  any  of  the  conditions  of 
the  ordinance  then  follows. 

As  a  matter  of  informntion  which  may  be  serviceable,  it 


Prohibitory  clauses 
for  news  contracts. 


31 

.■should  be  said  that  the  permit  feature  forming  a  part  of 
the  above  ordinance,  is  analogous  to  the  restrictive  con- 
tracts with  the  news  agents  which  are  in  force  upon  many 
railway  and  steamboat  lines  in  the  United  States  and 
Canada.  The  following  is  a  principal  clause  in  such  con- 
tracts :  "  It  is  further  agreed  that  no  obscene,  profane,  vul- 
gar, or  improper  literature,  prints,  pictures, 
or  publications  of  any  kind,  shall  be  kept, 
sold,  or  offered  for  sale  on  the  trains  or  premises  of  said 
company ;  nor  shall  any  newspaper  or  other  publication  be 
sold  on  the  trains  or  })remises  of  said  company  which  is 
prohibited  by  the  [sujierintendent]  or  any  other  officer  of 
said  company  in  charge  of  this  department." 

The  "  permit  bill"  finds  no  favor  with  the  publishers  and' 
dealers  generally.  It  would  ])robably  have  to  be  altered 
in  .several  respects  to  be  technically  unassailable  ;  but  should 
its  passage  be  not  now  pressed  in  this  city,  a  like  measure 
may,  nevertheless,  afford  a  means  of  relief  for  some  other 
|>lacc  or  places  where  a  sti-onger  right  sentiment  prevails. 
With  this  helpful  purpose  in  view,  it  has  been  somewhat 
fully  referred  to  here.  Another  plan  of  relief  which  should 
not  be  lost  sight  of,  is  that  to  wiiich  allusion  is  made  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  preceding  article,  to  wit :  A  Board  of  Ex- 
aminers or  Censors  (men  and  women),  to  be  appointed  by 
the  judges,  from  lists  furnished  the  latter  by  the  representa- 
tive bodies  of  the  several  religious  denominations.  {See 
page  22  ante.) 

Further,  there  needs  to  be  more  attention  given,  and 
care  extended  relative  to  the  character  of  the  printed  matter 


32 

which  is  carried  by  express  or  through  the  mails,  the  length 
and  breadth  of  the  land.  P]veryvvhere  in  the  far  West,  in 
frontier  towns  and  in  mining  camps,  the  demoralizing  illus- 
trated prints  from  the  presses  of  the  Eastern  cities  are  to  be 

The  home  protec-     '^^^  with.     Hence,  we  may,  with  benefit, 
tion  that  is  lacking.        ^.^^^^^  j^^^^,^  j,^  j^^^^^^  protection  from  apro- 

visiou  of  the  tariff  act  of  Canada,  which  is  pointedly  directed 
against  the  pernicious  printed  matter  manufactured  on  this 
side  the  Great  Lakes  and  the  St.  Lawrence.  The  law  of  our 
north-border  neighbor  declares  that  these  j^nblications  shall 
not  be  permitted  to  enter  the  Dominion.  Upon  the  change 
in  the  Governor  Generalship  about  four  years  ago,  fresh  in- 
structions to  the  collectors  upon  this  point  were  issued,  as 
follows:  ''You  are  requested  to  use  the  greatest  care  in 
preventing  the  importation  or  sale  of  such  immoral  and 
indecent  publications  as  [names  given]  and  similar  papers. 
It  is  not  necessary  for  you  to  wait  for  special  notice  of  any 
publication  by  name  from  this  department,  but  it  is  your 
duty  to  exercise  your  own  judgment  as  to  what  may  be  pro- 
perly classed  under  the  prohibitory  clause  of  the  tariff."* 

No  definite  allusion  has  been  made  in  the  foregoing  pages 
to  the  daily  papers.  The  question  has  been  put  to  me, 
what  local  daily  could  I  conscientiously  recommend  as  safe 
to  be  taken  in  a  family  where  there  are  children.  A  manu- 
facturer wrote  recently,  in  reference  to  this  point :  "  A  very 
prominent  business  man  of  this  city  stated  in  public,  that 
there  were  but  two  [local]  newspapers  fit  to  be  taken  into  a 

*  Philadelphia  Evening  Bulletin,  1882. 


The  dailies  of  Phila- 
delphia and  of  other 
cities. 


33 

respectable  fiimily,"  and,  my  int'oriiiant  added,  "  We  have 
sundry  pa})ers  in  this  city  tliat  ought  to  be  prevented  from 
being  sent  through  the  mails  on  account  of  their  gross  and 
filthy  articles.  What  can  you  do  for  morality  when  each  (?) 
of  our  daily  papers  have  reporters  that  are  like  fine-scented 
hounds  on  the  track  of  a  scandal." 

Well,  we  do  possess  very  varying  grades  of  quality  in  our 
dailies;  from  the  several  that  are  as  nearly  unexceptiona- 
ble, I  suppose,  as  any  that  are  to  be  found  in  any  large 
city,  and  in  the  preparation  of  which  the 
editors  and  publishers  find  need  to  nar- 
rowly inspect,  assort  and  amend,  and  very 
often  reject,  the  findings  of  their  cntcrjirising  reporters, 
down  to  the  sheet  of  the  lowest  stamp,  in  whose  conscience- 
less make-up  the  scandal-moiigcring  j)roponsity  has  known 
no  check,  and,  resp('<'ting  the  damage  to  follow  the  reading 
of  which,  tliere  does  not  seem  to  have  been  given  a  thought. 
What  parent  is  there  who  prizes  things  j)ure,  holy,  and 
of  good  report,  who  would  not  rather  lay  his  child  in  the 
grave  at  once,  than  to  believe  him  destined  to  tiike  delight 
in  the  perusal  of  papers  of  so  offensive*  and  offending  a 
character  ? 

Says  the  CDnfircfjatiorKtlisI ,  ol"  IJostoii  :  "  ;\  most  inlclli- 
gent  Christian  gentleman  last  week  told  us,  that  he  had 
discontinued  his  long  subscription  to  a  leading  Massachu- 
.setts  daily,  for  no  other  reason  than  that  he  eould  not  but 
feel  that  its  uncdite'd  news  columns  were  neither  decent  nor 
.safe  for  tin."  reading  of  his  family."  A  New  York  paper  f 
of  la.st  year  said  :  "  An  examination  recently  made  showed 
.1 


'■•'/ 


34 

that  in  the  live  leading  New  Yori<  morning  papers,  exclud- 
ing the  market  reports  and  shippmg  news,  an  average  of 
thirty  per  cent,  of  the  sjmcc  given  to  reading  matter  was 
devoted  to  accounts  of  murders,  suicides,  and  crimes  of 
every  grade,  dressed  up  in  all  the  circumstantial  details 
possible  to  be  obtained."  The  Christian  WeeJdi/  of  the 
same  city,  as  the  result  of  a  critical  examen  of  the  make-up 
of  the  metropolitan  dailies,  conchides:  "There  is  scarcely 
one  that  has  not  turned  its  face  in  the  direction  [of  the  de- 
moralizing]. There  is  not  one  of  the  great  dailies  that  is 
using  any  such  proportion  of  its  power  as  it  mi;.;ht  in  the 
direction  of  the  moral  uplifting  of  the  community." 

It  is  gratifying  to  be  able  to  note,  as  indicating  a  better 
tendency  in  this  city,  that  the  two  Philadelphia  dailies 
which  happen  to  be  on  my  table  as  t  write,  each  contain 
l)ut  about  ten  to  twelve  per  cent,  of  criminal  news,  that 
these  items  of  news  are  not  "dressed  up  in  all  the  circum- 
stantial details"  such  as  gave  occasion  for  the  just  complaint 
above  quoted,  and  that  the  papers  themselves  are  issued 
on  no  more  than  six  days  of  the  week.  Commendable 
was  the  habit  (would  that  it  were  general!)  of  one  of  our 
late  well-to-do  and  highly-respected  merchants,  who,  in 
essaying  to  maintain  his  newspaper  reading  within  what  he 
judged  to  be  its  rightful  limits,  would  not  open  the  paper 
until  after  the  morning  meal  and  the  reading  of  his  Bible 
were  finished.  Neither  would  he  read  a  secular  paper  on 
the  first  day  of  the  week,  lest,  falling  into  the  habit,  it 
should  grow  upon  him  apace,  and  so  his  thoughts  be  bound 
down  to  earth  and  its  perishing  things,  while  the  best 
interests  of  his  children  should  suffer  neglect  at  his  hands. 


35 

The  two  citations  from  the  Boston  and  New  York  papers 
merely  take  cognizance  of  the  pernicious  in  the  "space 
given  to  reading  matter" — the  editor's  peculiar  province. 
Not  infrequently,  however,  painstaking  conscientiousness 
in  the  news  columns  will  he  apparent,  when  the  publisher's 
special  department — that  of  the  advertisements,  will  he  (in 
part)  of  a  character  quite  at  variance  with  what  might  rea- 
sonably be  looked  for.  Thus,  conspicuous  advertisements 
of  revolvers  have  very  often  appeared  in  papers  of  the 
religious  press,  yet,  so  apparent  now  is  the  connection 
between  homicides  and  pistol-carrying,  that  mischievous 
insertions  of  that  sort,  are.  I  think,  seldom  admitted. 
On  the  other  hand,  such  an  iniquitous  or  "  unedited"  class 
of  advertisements  as  those  of  the  variety  theatres  and  of 
luanv  other  debasing  resorts,  are  accepted  by  very  many, 
perhaps  a  large  majority,  of  the  dailies. 
Nevertheless,  to  issue  through  the  medium 
of  a  dailv  paper  freely  admitted  to  our  homes,  invitations 
to  resorts  notoriously  degrading,  is,  without  doubt,  to  hand 
forth  "printed  poison"  of  the  most  unmistakable  character. 
The  lano-uage  of  tin*  Lord  (Jml  to  gainsaying  Israel,  after 
He  had  set  their  backslidiugs,  perversities,  and  double- 
dealinir  in  order  before  them,  was — Are  not  i/nnr  n-<iyx 
viirfjufil /  And  when,  at  the  great  assize,  in(|uest  for 
blood  shall  go  furth,  and  the  cry  of  the  children  w'hose 
^iiids  were  slain  in  dens  of  iniquity  shall  reach  the  ear  of 
the  Almightv  Arbiter,  what  answer  will  lie  nia<Ie  by  those 
who  knowingly .  ruiNTKi)  rni-:  W.w.  and  pdinled  out 
the   paths   to    the  ehand)ers  of  dealh? 


Dailies  advertising 
low  places  of  resort. 


THE   PERNICIOUS   IN   LIBEAEIES. 


The  man  who  founds,  or  the  corporation  or  committee 
which  establishes,  a  free  public  library  iu  any  community, 
is  usually  esteemed,  without  controversy,  to  have  supplied 
the  people  with  a  great  and  wise  benefaction.  In  many 
cases  this  persuasion  holds  true,  but  in  very  many  others, 
even  where  the  library  is  started  on  a  fair  foundation  and 
with  the  prospect  of  continuing  to  be  a  source  of  rational 
entertainment  and  enlightenment — a  fount  of  blessing;  to 
the  district  in  w^hich  it  is  placed — the  reverse  of  all  this 
has  too  often  resulted.  And  this  has  happened,  probably 
in  the  large  majority  of  such  cases,  because  the  mana- 
gers in  charge  have  weakly  succumbed  to  the  craving  for 
fiction,  even  to  the  extent  of  su[)p]ying 
trashy,  vapid,  and  often  immoral  works, 
only  a  very  little  better  in  their  general  quality  than  the  ave- 
rage of  the  fiction  retailed  at  the  sidewalk  news-stands.  I 
have  before  me  the  report  of  a  certain  public  library, 
and  it  shows  that  the  proportion  of  works  of  fiction  to  those 
of  science,  taken  out  the  past  year,  was  as  54  to  1. 

In  an  article  upon  "  Divorce  versus  Fiction,"  contributed 
by  the  writer  to  a  weekly  journal  about  four  years  ago,  the 
following  upon  the  topic  before  us,  may  be  pertinently 
introduced  in  this  place. 


Trashy    fiction    in 
public  libraries. 


87 

'•  It  was  to  the  munificence  of  Joshua  Bates  that  the 
great  Boston  Library  owed  its  existence.  In  expressing 
his  chief  purpose  some  years  before  the  war,  relative  to 
founding  such  a  library,  he  wrote  that  he  was  actuated  by 
a  desire  '  to  save  those,  who,  left  to  themselves,  [would] 
waste  their  time  in  railroad  literature,  chiefly  American 
novels.  These  publications,'  he  continues,  '  are  doing  im- 
mense mischief,  and  the  rising  generation  will  grow  up 
destitute  of  positive  knowledge.'  How  have  the  provisions 
of  the  trust  in  this  resj)ect  been  observed  ?  It  appears  that 
one-third  of  all  the  books  purchased  are  novels  and  story- 
books, and  that  between  tlu'cc-fourthsand  four-fifths  of  the 
librar}^s  circulation  is  confined  to  this  class.  So  anxious, 
indeed,  appears  to  be  the  desire  to  cater  tu  the  depraved 
taste  of  the  j)ublic  in  this  direction,  that — scarcely  credible 
though  the  statement  seems — ;in  average  of  ten  copies  of 
each  novel  are  ])rocured. 

"  Recently  a  cfunmittcc,  appointed  by  the  Boston  (Mty 
Council,  made  inquiry  into  the  management  of  this  library. 
A  clergyman  who  gave  his  evidence  its  to  the  character  of 
the  Fiction,  says  he  spent  several  days  in  a  critical  exan)i- 
nation  of  the  very  large  number  of  books  in  that  depart- 
ment, and  that  he  wa-;  amazed  at  the  mass  of  pernicious 
publieations  whicli  has  been  there  brought  together.* 

'•  A-  to  the  rliaraeter  of  these  novels,  it  has  been  found 


A  luiiil  master  ijf  uiie  of  the  BoHtoii  sclmols  who  liad  j^iveii  atlcii- 
iIdii  to  hiwi  i)iiiiils'  roailiiij;,  reriiarkwl:  "  Tlie  I'ultlic  Library  is  u  curne 
to  the  Hchool  children."  There  has  l)een  Koiiie  atleiii|)l  at  im|irove- 
iiiiiit.  it  i.>*  said,  -^iiK  <•  the  siilijeet  wax  pidiliely  airitate<l. 


38 

hy  experience  that  tliost;  wliich  are  the  most  sensational, 
those  which  most  deal  in  the  follies  and  rank  vices  of  men 
and  women,  are  most  in  demand.  The  temptation  to  win 
present  favor  by  this  means,  and  an  easy  return  for  their 
toil,  is  one  which  most  authors,  struggling  for  a  mere  liv- 
i\ig,  iind  it  hard  to  resist ;  whilst  publishers,  on  their  part, 
can  dispose  of  an  average  edition  of  almost  any  novel  they 
bring  out,  to  the  public  libraries  ! 

"'To  give  an  idea,'  continues  the  writer  \n  i\\Q  Inter- 
national Review,  'of  what  the  ordinary  novel  of  the  day  is, 
I  will  take  from  a  leading  English  journal,  the  Spectator, 
which  happens  to  lie  on  my  desk  as  I  write,  the  notices  of 
the  novels  of  the  week.  They  are  seven  in  number.  The 
first  has  for  a  heroine  a  woman  who  con- 
fesses that  under  certain  circumstances  she 
would  set  love  above  law.  The  hero  is 
created  to  show  in  what  a  refined  way  he  can  fall  in  love 
with  another  man's  wife.  The  object  of  the  book  is  to 
introduce  some  very  indifferent  scoffs  at  reliofion  and  reliy;- 
ious  people.  The  next  is  a  dull  story  not  wholly  free  from 
vulgarity.  In  the  third  there  is  a  horrible  element' — and 
so  on.  He  does  not  find  one  of  the  seven  which  could  be 
called  good  and  proper  reading,  even  for  a  novel-reader, 
and  yet  such  publications  as  these  are  placed  by  thousands 
upon  the  shelves  of  all  the  large  libraries,  and  are  sought 
for  by  the  readers  more  greedily  than  are  any  others  of  the 
books.  A  free  public  library,  managed  upon  such  princi- 
ples as  these,  would  seem  to  be  the  worst  enemy  that  any 
oommunitv  could  set  in  its  midst. 


The  Divorce  evil  pro 
moted  by  public  libra 
ries. 


39 

"It  would  therefore  appear  that,  to  this  pernicious 
leaven,  constantlv  workino-  in  a  .section  of  our  country 
notably  better  provided  with  free  libraries  than  an}"^  other, 
to  the  same  influence  working  through  the  trashy  publi- 
cations of  the  news-stands,  and  to  the  play-houses  whence 
people  are  drawn  in  droves  awa;(  from  the  houses  of  wor- 
ship, may  be  found  several  active  causes  ever  operating 
against  the  unity  and  peace  of  the  family,  and  ever  tending 
to  make  the  occasion  for  divorce  more  and  more  frequent."* 

Having  set  out  with  the  conscientious  purpose  of  candidly 
resting  the  responsibility  for  the  prevalence  of  the  printed 
poison  evil  where  it  properly  belongs,  the  writer  in  conclu- 
sion offers  the  following  paragraph  upon  Sabbath  School 
libraries  as  in  many  cases  fostering  (alas,  that  it  should 
be  said!)  the  p<»|)ular  craving  for  the  untrue,  trashy,  super- 
ficial, and  pernicious.  The  sentences  appended  are  those 
of  the  well-informed  editors  of  the  G\udeto  HoUn&^x. 

"  There  needs  to  be  a  great  jmrgation  of  Sunday  School 
libraries.  The  best  use  that  could  be  nuule  of  soiiu-  of 
them  would  be  to  make  a  tirtat  ijonlirc  of  tluMu.  'i'hev  are 
polluting  the  tender  minds  of  our  childi'cn  and  youth.  A 
distinguished  Sabbath  School  worker  said, 
some  years  ago,  '  that  he  was  alm<»st  ready 
to  advocate  tlieir  total  abandonment,'  so  convinced  was 
he  of  their  pernicious  influence.  .\  Sabbath  School  Com- 
initt(;e,  armed  with  $/30  or  $!"<',  comes  to  tiie  city  to 
select  books.     They  have  only  two  or  three  hours  to  spend 

*  The  Friend,  T\\\ri\   Month   ruli.lHKl.      KepiintiMl   in  Ciniiliir   Nd. 
•'),  of  tlio  AnnTiraii  Liltrary  I'nion  und  I'ure  LiltTuture  IJurciiii. 


The  trashy  in  Sab- 
bath School  libraries. 


^ 


40 

in  the  selection  of  food  for  the  young  lambs.  They 
hurriedly  pass  around  among  the  publishers,  eager  to 
catch  an  early  train  for  home.  Publishers'  clerks  throw 
down  upon  the  counters  books  with  taking  titles  and 
well-gilded  covers.  The  taking  titles  take  the  Committee, 
and  away  they  go  to  spread  their  new-found  treasures  be- 
fore their  young  charge.  The  eyes  of  the  little  people 
sparkle  as  they  see  the  well-gilded  volumes.  Alas,  for  us  ! 
The  gild  is  only  on  the  outside.  Inside  is  trash.  The 
deadly  influence  of  this  superficial  selection  of  books  is  be- 
ing felt  all  over  the  land.  We  are  in  great  perplexity 
about  it.  Friends  write  to  us  to  advise  them  how  to  select 
books ;  but  we  are  at  a  loss  to  give  advice.  Sabbath  School 
book  publishers  are  catering  to  the  popular  taste.  Who- 
ever will  step  forward  and  solve  this  problem,  one  of  the 
greatest  problems  of  the  times,  how  to  keep  the  minds  of 
our  children  and  youth  from  the  poison  of  modern  Sabbath 
School  literature,  will  be  a  real  benefactor." 


CONCLUDING   REMARK. 


So,  it  will  not  suffice  to  condemn  and  oven  to  suppress 
the  demoralizing-  publications  of  the  news-shop  and  street 
stand,  without  there  is  also  witnessed  an  honest,  sympathetic 
movement  on  the  part  of  the  managers  of  public  libraries, 
as  well  as  those  of  "Sabbath  Schools,"  tliat  shall  i)urge, 
weed  out,  and  destroy  every  i)ublication  upon  their  shelves, 
which,  upon  a  deliberate  and  dispassionate  examination 
shall  be  seen  to  be  unmistakably  pernicious.  I  trust  the 
word  "destroy"  doesn't  sound  too  strong.  There  is  a 
quite  large  and  well-patronized  library  in  the  suburbs  of 
this  city,  whose  custodian  lias  instructions  to  deposit  any 
book  of  undoubtedly  demoralizing  tendency  in  the  furnace, 
when  said  book  cannot  be  rcturni'd  to  the  dealer  of  whom 
it  was  purchased.  Though  occasions  for  the  exercise  of 
so  extreme  a  measure  rarely  arise — lor  tlie  purchasing 
committee  critically  and  eonscientiously  insju'ct  the  books 
they  order — yet,  gilt  edges,  and  ornamental  covers,  antl 
tine  typography,  are  vain  and  inelfeetual  defences  wheu 
badness  has  been  proven.  TIk;  books  have  no  souls  that 
may  be  damage<l — their  readers  have:  whereiore,  this 
eoinmittee  feel  that  tlu-re  is  no  excuse  for  the  retaining 
of  a  misciiievous  (which  is  also  usually  a  much  read) 
book,  in  order  that  the   total  of  volumes   and    tin-    lotal  of 


42 

circulation  shall  show  by  their  aggregates  how  "success- 
ful" is  the  institution  under  their  care. 

One  cannot,  it  has  been  sagely  said,  "  take  fire  into  his 
bosom  and  not  be  burned."  Now,  it  is  the  spirit  of  judg- 
ment and  of  sacrifice  that  the  times  call  for — when  men  shall 
be  willing  to  "  come  out,  be  separate,  and  touch  not  the 
unclean  thing,"  and  when  thf^-e  shall  be  a  readiness  mani- 
fested to  do,  in  efiect,  as  did  the  convinced  ones  at  Ephesus 
among  whom  "  the  word  of  God  grew  mightily  and  prevail- 
ed," in  making  an  end  by  fire  of  their  "curious"  and  enter- 
taining, but  soul-destroying  books.  Or,  as  did  at  a  later  day 
those  Florentines  whom  the  searching  testimony  of  Savona- 
^'ola  pricked  to  the  heart,  and  who  in  the  great  plaza  of  their 
beautiful  city,  burnt  in  one  vast  heap  the  pernicious  books 
and  all  the  other  wretched  trash  which  they  were  conscious 
had  be6n  instrumental  in  keeping  them  away  from  their 
God. 


Note  to  New  Edition. — An  observant  Englishman,  now  in  the 
United  States,  having  read  this  Essay  on  Printed  Poison,  gave  it  as  his 
opinion,  that  although  much  that  is  said  herein  as  to  the  prevalence 
of  the  pernicious  in  print,  is  applicable  to  his  own  land,  yet  there  is 
also  to  be  found  at  railroad  stations,  and  many  other  public  places  (much 
more,  he  thought,  than  there  is  here)  an  abundance  of  low-priced  moral 
and  improving  literature,  issued  l)y  the  Religious  Tract  and  other 
Societies.  Works  of  this  character,  cheap,  yet  good,  in  the  shape  of 
single  sheets,  pamphlets  and  paper-covered  books,  are  the  available 
substitutes  for  and  correctives  of  the  trashv  and  immoral. 


HE^EWhr^ 


PLEA5P  DO   NOT    REMOVE 
THIS   BOOK  CARDJ 


i? 


^tUBRARYQc 

U" 


^<!/OJnVDJO^ 

1 

University  Research  Library 


